Persistence of Flood Waters – Vale of York – Autumn 2015

Flooding in the UK last winter caused significant damage to homes and businesses. Many farms were also affected, causing damage to agricultural crops. Crop yields are severely affected by waterlogging and crops can be killed if flooded for more than two weeks.

Data over the Vale of York, acquired by the new Sentinel-1 satellite, reveals some fields in the area were flooded for over 100 days, impacting on both agricultural grassland and arable crops. This is the first time multi-temporal satellite datasets have been used to assess the impact on agriculture of a long term flood event.